Tainted Policy
Joan M. Sakalas
Southern Vermont College, Bennington, USA.
DOI: 10.4236/ojps.2014.42007   PDF   HTML   XML   2,901 Downloads   4,640 Views  

Abstract

The article revisits the 1996 revision of “welfare policy” in the United States. Often public policy is written and publicized in glowing terms that describe the wonderful changes we will see in the future. Unfortunately we often uncritically believe projected accomplishments of policy changes to be actual accomplishments. This article documents the gap between reality and publicity. It focuses on the demonization of single mothers and the justification of reduced societal responsibility for those living in poverty and outlines how we might re-envision policy that would be reality based.

Share and Cite:

Sakalas, J. (2014) Tainted Policy. Open Journal of Political Science, 4, 47-57. doi: 10.4236/ojps.2014.42007.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Abramovitz, M. (1991). Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present (pp. 318-334). Boston: South End Press.
[2] Anderson, E. (1995). A Senate Retreat on Welfare (pp. 16, 19). The New York Times.
[3] Bennett, W. J. (1992). The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (p. 193). New York: Simon and Schuster.
[4] Bork, R. H. (1997). Slouching toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (pp. 154, 162). New York: Regan Books.
[5] Brokaw, T. (1996). NBC Evening News.
[6] Bryson, L. (1992). Welfare and the State: Who Benefits? (p. 31). London: The Macmillan Press Ltd.
[7] Edin, K. A. (1997). Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
[8] Eisenstein, Z. (1990). The Female Body and the Law (p. 259). Santa Cruz: University of California Press.
[9] Fineman, M. A. (1995). The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies (p. 108). New York: Routledge.
[10] Funiciello, T. (1993). Tyranny of Kindness (pp. 57-58, 298). New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press.
[11] Gans, H. (1995). The War against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy (pp. 7, 24, 34, 205). New York: Basic Books.
[12] Gilens, M. (1999). Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226293660.001.0001
[13] Gordon, L. (1994) Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, 1890-1935 (pp. 1-13). New York: The Free Press.
[14] Hernstein, R. J. (1994). Race, Genes and I.Q.—An Apologia. (p. 49). New Republic.
[15] Himmelfarb, G. (1995). The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values (pp. 24, 242, 251). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
[16] Hubbard, R. A. (1993). Exploding the Gene Myth (p. 14). Boston: Beacon Press.
[17] Jewell, K. S. (1993). From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of US Social Policy (p. 58). New York: Routledge.
[18] Mead, L. (1996). The Poverty Debate and Human Nature. In S. W. Carlson-Thies (Ed.), Welfare in America: Christian Perspectives on Policy in Crisis (p. 209). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[19] Mink, G. (1995). The Wages of Motherhood: Maternalist Social Policy, Race, and the Political Origins of Women’s Inequality in the Welfare State (p. 4). Rochester: Cornell University Press.
[20] Morley, M. A. (1998). Wealth and Poverty in the National Economy: The Domestic Foundations of Clinton’s Global Policy. In C. Y. Lo (Ed.), Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda (p. 127). Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
[21] Murray, C. (1984). Losing Ground: American Social Policy: 1950-1980 (p. 234). New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.
[22] Murray, C. (1993). The Emerging White Underclass and How to Save It (p. A15). Philadelphia Enquirer, 15 November 1993.
[23] Naples, N. A. (1998). Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty (p. 200). New York: Routledge.
[24] Omolade, B. (1994). The Rising Song of African American Women (p. 69). New York: Routledge.
[25] Pearce, D. A. (1994). Teen Pregnancy, Welfare and Poverty: Myths V. Facts. Washington DC: Wider Opportunities for Women, 1.
[26] Piven, F. F. (1997). The Breaking of the American Social Compact (pp. 183-184, 194-195). New York: The New Press.
[27] Rafter, N. H. (1992). Partial Justice: Women, Prison, and Social Control (pp. 37, 93). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
[28] Richie, B. E. (1996). Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of Battered Black Women (pp. 5-12). New York: Routledge.
[29] Seelye, K. Q. (1996). Dole Is Confronted on His View of Welfare (p. A20). The New York Times, 31 May 1996.
[30] Sklar, H. (1995). Chaos or Community: Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics (pp. 72-78). Boston, MA: South End Press.
[31] US Department of Labor (2014). Vermont Minimum Wage. http://www.dol.gov./
[32] US Department of Health and Human Services (2014). 2013 Poverty Guidelines. http://www.hhs.gov./
[33] US Department of Justice (2014). Highlights of the US Patriot Act. http://www.justice.gov/archive/
[34] US Congress (1996). Title I-Block Grants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Public Law 104-193. Washington DC: United States Congress.
[35] Vermont Joint Fiscal Office. (2009). 2009 Livable Wate: Basic Needs and Taxes.
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/ifo/Reports%20by%20Subject.htm
[36] Walker, S., & Spohn, C. A. (1996). The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America (pp. 77-82). New York: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
[37] Waring, M. (1997). Three Masquerades: Essays on Equality, Work and Human Rights (p. 50). Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.
[38] Williams, P. J. (1997). Seeing A Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race (pp. 49, 57). New York: The Noonday Press.
[39] Wordsworth, W. (2010). The World Is Too Much With Us: A Study Guide p. 2. Cummings Study Guides.
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/WorldIsTooMuch.html
[40] Zygmunt, B. (1998). Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (pp. 66-68). Philadelphia, PA: Open University.

Copyright © 2023 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.